[Dixielandjazz] Sibellius or Finale or Encore?

[scott sproxton]

I do agree that whichever program you consistently use and become familiar with is going to be the program that you become attached to. I used Encore for about five years and to this day still feel there are subtle things I could learn to improve my scores. Recently however I made the big plunge and purchased Sibelius through their competitive upgrade program(it offers Sibelius at a discounted rate if you send them proof that you have one of their competitors programs i.e.. Encore or Finale). I've been more than pleased with Sibelius since I received it and could not recommend it more. The learning curve was quite short(a few weeks tops) and now that I am more or less proficient with the program I can input one of my old hand written scores in a few hours(including extracting parts and printing)! I must agree with other list-mates about the scanning feature though, it is quite horrible and completely useless. You can try Sibelius for free by following this link and downloading a demo version which won't save and will only print one page of a score but it will help you make up your mind if it if for you or not!

 http://sibelius.com/cgi-bin/download/get.pl?com=sh&prod=sibdemo


Scott Sproxton
fuzzscott at shaw.ca



Message: 6
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 07:29:46 -0500
From: <dave at creolejazz.com>
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Sibellius or Finale or Encore?
To: "Dixieland Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Message-ID: <003301c5ce5f$77f02910$dbf9f746 at Dave>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original

There is sort of a subtle debate (and sometimes not too subtle) between 
notation software users as to which program is best. I'm pleased to learn 
that Don uses Finale, too. I started just a couple of years before you, Don, 
and have had every version upgrade since. Although, I don't have 2006 yet.

The truth is that whichever program you start with and use is the one you're 
going learn and like. Yes, Finale is complicated in some ways, but its depth 
allows you to have complete control over every aspect of your output. If 
that's the kind of control you want, you can't beat Finale. If you just want 
simplicity and don't really care to much what the final result is, choose a 
simpler (and cheaper) alternative.

And contrary to one post on this subject, the .pdf manual that comes with 
Finale is extremely helpful, user friendly, and complete and is updated with 
every upgrade. At least that is my opinion. I'm always able to quickly find 
out how to do what I need to do.

Check out this link for an interesting, recent comparison of Finale vs 
Sibelius.

http://www.jefferycotton.net/info.asp?pgs=hairpin

These comparisons come up every now and then and I find them interesting.

I know we've strayed from your original question. Sorry about that.

Dave